Thursday, March 11, 2010

Fundamentally Insane

Living in the south you see the blurring of church and state in many ways, but this push by religious zealots to rewrite textbooks for public schools is the most frightening development yet in their war on liberalism. The NYT reports:

Even as a panel of educators laid out a vision Wednesday for national standards for public schools, the Texas school board was going in a different direction, holding hearings on changes to its social studies curriculum that would portray conservatives in a more positive light, emphasize the role of Christianity in American history and include Republican political philosophies in textbooks.

A look at the particular changes these fundies are demanding to counter "liberal bias" in schools is astounding in its scope and unreality. One amendment states that the civil rights movement "created 'unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes' among minorities. ...The amendments are also intended to emphasize the unalloyed superiority of the 'free-enterprise system' over others and the desirability of limited government. One says publishers should 'describe the effects of increasing government regulation and taxation on economic development and business planning.'"

What's really remarkable about this, besides the fact they want to rewrite history to pretend conservative economic policies worked, is the leader of this effort, Dr. McLeroy, was voted out last week in a primary but he still has 10 months in his term and is clearly determined to do as much damage as possible in the remaining time. If he succeeds, our public school textbooks will be effectively useless for years to come. Kind of makes me wish that Texas secession movement had worked.

2 Comments:

I think the role of Christianity in fighting slavery should be emphasized and the role of Christianity in promoting and justifying slavery should be emphasized too, along with it's use against voting rights, property rights and civil rights for women and minorities; segregation, misogyny laws and the exploitation of the native peoples - which includes kidnapping their children and Christianizing them.